Branding strategies can help you to maintain business growth. Without a branding strategy in place, you are essentially relying on what worked before. But here’s the thing. Times change. Audience preferences can swell and shrink for reasons beyond your control.
You may have heard the sound business advice to never rely on one source of income. With that in mind, let’s check out some effective brand management techniques that could see you withstand the effects of changing appetites for your products and services.
Extend your current product line
Your current product line may be one product or service, or several products or services (or a combination). Whatever you offer, you will be aware of your best sellers – even if you offer a single product, there will likely be greater or lesser seasonal demand throughout the year.
The aim here is to realise what works best for you and extend your current product line. For example, let’s say that you currently offer a range of men’s shaving products. If you notice that there is greater demand for your electric shaving products towards the gift-giving month of December (and throughout the January sales), you could make the presumption that a range of female electric shaving products could be as popular.
Notice what works for you. Carry out market research. Extend your current lines. It’s a great place to start.
Start a new product line
Sometimes, companies get started because there is a temporary spike in demand for a particular product or service. The problem is that when the demand eventually – and inevitably – wanes, the company must make bold decisions or risk going under.
Who remembers the 2010 football world cup in South Africa? No? OK, you may not recall any of the games, and you might not remember who won the cup, but unless you were living under a rock that year, you will likely be able to summon a memory of the vuvuzelas.
A vuvuzela is a plastic trumpet. It makes one loud note – a B flat – when blown. And everyone in the stadiums had one. The entire world cup was drowned out in a swamp of droning B flats. It got old, fast. Still, absolutely everyone had one.
Now, imagine you were the CEO of vuvu-annoy-in-Bflat.com, and imagine you didn’t start a new product line before the end of the world cup. Those businesses went under. The ones who used their manufacturing and distribution prowess to expand into other moulded-plastic toys stood a chance of surviving. You may have to be flexible to survive.
Start a fresh brand
A second brand can be your life raft. It can be in your field, or something completely different. Whatever you choose, don’t condemn it to a miserable first quarter and a predictable demise by not treating it with the respect it deserves. It may be a life raft for now, but if your Titanic goes down, you’ll wish you spent more time on making your life raft a much stronger stand-alone vessel.